IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/nrmchp/978-3-030-11857-0_6.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Potential of Mine Waste Rock to Generate Acid Mine Drainage – A Case Study in South-Western Ghana

In: New Frontiers in Natural Resources Management in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Grace Ofori-Sarpong

    (University of Mines and Technology)

  • Richard Amankwah

    (University of Mines and Technology)

Abstract

Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) is one of the major threats confronting mining companies worldwide, due to the ability of the acidic water to contaminate water bodies and cause ecological destruction, adversely affecting flora and fauna even years beyond the mine life. South-western Ghana hosts two major gold belts, and these together have 10 large-scale mining companies, several small-scale mines, farms and other units and activities that cause land disturbances. The potential for these activities to promote AMD generation has brought about interest in studies on mapping out the sulphur-mineralised zones in south-western Ghana to document the acid generating potential of these areas and recommend remedial measures. This paper reports on some of the findings of on-going studies on AMD generation potential in south-western Ghana. Mineralogical studies showed that quartz accounted for about 75% while carbonates, feldspars, pyroxene, sericites and chlorites accounted for 25% of samples tested. The pyrite content was up to 5% and arsenopyrite, 1% of samples observed in polish section. All the samples: mine waste, mineralised waste and ore contained sulphides. The results from geochemical and Acid-Base Accounting (ABA) analysis passed 57% of the samples as non-sulphidic, 38% contained 1.6–4% sulphur, and 5% had 0.02–1.5% sulphur. Analysis of paste pH confirmed that about 80% of the samples were neutral to basic (i.e. pH 6.5–8.5). Further analysis using Net Neutralising Potential (NNP) and ratios of Maximum Neutralisation Potential to Acid Production Potential (NP:AP) placed 35% of the samples as having the potential to generate acid since the NNPs were negative, while the NP:AP had values less than 1. This 35% had the capacity to significantly deteriorate natural water quality. The study concludes that there is a significant potential for AMD generation in both mining and non-mining areas in south-western Ghana, and this calls for periodic monitoring and development of proactive neutralising strategies to arrest the situation.

Suggested Citation

  • Grace Ofori-Sarpong & Richard Amankwah, 2019. "Potential of Mine Waste Rock to Generate Acid Mine Drainage – A Case Study in South-Western Ghana," Natural Resource Management and Policy, in: Elias T. Ayuk & Ngozi F. Unuigbe (ed.), New Frontiers in Natural Resources Management in Africa, chapter 0, pages 79-91, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:nrmchp:978-3-030-11857-0_6
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-11857-0_6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nrmchp:978-3-030-11857-0_6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.